Improving Organizational Results

Our days are full.  Our to-do lists never get any shorter.  And, time is passing faster and faster every day.  Life as a business leader seems rather complex.

In some respects life is complicated.  However, when you think about your organization’s performance and how to improve it, it really comes down to two questions.

First, are you underperforming your industry?  Are there competitors who are setting new benchmarks for high performance in your industry?  If they can do it, you can too.  Forget the excuses and just focus on how your company can become a high performing company.  First place does not preclude any other company from also achieving the same results.  They’re in first place because you’re not in first place.

Second, are you committed to do something about the fact that you’re not outperforming your competitors?

If not, don’t worry about it.  You’ll continue to be fodder for your competitors to feed on, taking your best customers and leaving you with the high maintenance, low margin leftovers.

If you are committed to do something about not being the industry leader, focus on closing the gap between the results you would like to achieve and the ability of your organization to deliver those results.  What’s working?  What’s not working?  Why is it not working?  Get involved in the execution details to point your company in the direction of delivering improved results.  This means that improving your company’s organizational execution should show up on your calendar in a significant way at the expense of some of the things you’re doing now.

Apply your efforts over time and you, your employees and your shareholders won’t regret it.

Successful vs. Effective Leadership

In my work with clients over the years, one discussion comes up more than any other.  It’s the distinction between successful and effective leadership.

Let’s start at the beginning.  Leadership is necessary because one person cannot accomplish all that needs to be done.  There isn’t enough time.  Things have to happen simultaneously.  Specialized expertise is needed.  More input results in better ideas and decisions.  And, so on.  So, someone has to coordinate the work of others.

In my last post, I defined leadership as opposed to managing or coordinating.  Today, I want to focus on the distinction between successful leadership and effective leadership.

If you give out work assignments assignments and employees complete them, you’ve been successful.  One question to consider is why you have been successful.  Maybe employees did the work because they like the work.  Maybe they did the work because if they don’t do the work, it may, over time, put their employment at risk.  Maybe they did the work to make money to support their boat racing habit.  Who knows.  In any case, if they completed the work, you have been a successful leader.

But, have you been effective?  We acknowledged at the outset that leadership is necessary because one person can’t accomplish all the work that one person is responsible for, right?  For that reason, we need leaders who are more than successful.  We need leaders who are effective. 

Effective leaders are those who influence others to work on achieving organizational objectives even when the leader is off working on other areas of his/her responsibility.  In other words, employees will work toward achieving the organization’s objectives because they, like the leader, are committed to achieving the organizational objective.  When leaders are effective, they multiply their efforts and their results five to ten fold because they have influenced others that the organizational goal is worthy of their best effort.

What kind of leader are you?  Do you strive for success or effectiveness?

To learn more about the difference in organizational results for organizations with effective leaders, call or write for the details.

A Working Definition of Leadership

I define leadership as the act of influencing others toward organizational objectives.

Leadership requires influence.  If you’re managing a project, giving out assignments to team members and coordinating what items can be checked off the list, I’m not sure you’re really leading.  In the true leadership context, the definition of influence is to affect or to sway.  Team members may not be influenced by your direction as much as they are by the fact that they like the work or that there are consequences if they don’t do the work.  So, avoid automatically crediting management experience as leadership experience.

Secondly, leadership is the process of influencing others toward an organizational goal.  Leadership to achieve organizational objectives is necessary because the leader can’t do all the work him/herself.  Believe me, if it were possible, the leader would have done the work him/herself if they could have.  It’s easier than leading others to get the work done. 

Whether it’s the soccer team, a church committee or a manager and his/her employees, the purpose for our influence is to achieve an organizational objective.  Despite our different interests and motivations, the leader’s job is to get his/her followers to accomplish organizational objectives.  Unlike the weight loss class teacher who wants each person to achieve their own goal, true leadership requires pulling different people with different skill sets, diferent experience, different opinions and different motives together to accomplish organizational objectives.

Keep these distinctions in mind as you select and develop leaders in your organization.

Next up:  Successful vs. Effective leadership